You Can Call Me Jack
by Stahlfan125
Summary: A man named Peter Johnson notices a newcomer to his favorite bar. But there's something more to this stranger than meets the eye.


Random piece I wrote after seeing Red Eye for the second time...I may write a sequel, with maybe a LisaXJackson romance? Tell me what you think.

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**You Can Call Me Jack:**

Peter Johnson stood at six feet and two inches. He weighed two hundred and fifty pounds and had a trim beard and a shaved head. His arms were decorated heavily with tattoos, and his chest probably held more than a few as well. Every Monday morning for the past twelve years he had been going to the bar on Don street, just a few blocks away from his apartment in Miami, Florida. And for twelve years, he had been seeing the same four people in the bar on every single Monday morning. But, on this day, there were five.

Peter was a very perceptive person, though no one would have been able to tell by just looking at him. He looked like an idiot. He liked people to underestimate him, just so he could see the looks on their faces when they realized that he was much more than just a dim-witted meathead. He was also a very good judge of character, though his own was definitely questionable, to say the least. Looking at the bar's newcomer, he could tell that he was looking at trouble. And Peter Johnson was never wrong about those kinds of things.

He looked over the man thoughtfully, taking in every detail. He was around five feet and nine inches tall, and was very skinny. Peter almost laughed aloud, thinking about how he could have snapped this man in half without a second thought. He walked up to the man, noticing that he was dressed in a clean, crisp black suit with a purple tie, and had neatly combed brown hair that came to the back of his neck in the back, and fell in his forehead in the front.

The stranger barely looked up as Peter sat next to him. He just continued reading the book in his hands, seemingly pretending that he didn't see him. Peter mistook this as fear.

"Hey," Peter said casually, leaning against the counter. "What you doing reading a book in a bar?"

The greeting was friendly, though only on the surface. Peter wasn't happy that this man was in his bar, acting like he owned the place.

"Why wouldn't I be reading?" the man asked, sounding almost smug, closing the book slowly and folding his hands on top of the cover, glancing at Peter.

"It's a bar," Peter answered simply, giving the other man a pointed look. "And what are you doing here anyway?"

"Am I not allowed to be here?" the other man asked, grinning slightly. Peter shrugged, not liking the look in the stranger's extremely blue eyes.

"Didn't say nothin' about that, but it's Monday, and no one ever comes in here on a Monday." He paused and then chuckled. "Hell, no one ever comes in here ever."

The stranger laughed politely.

"I was thirsty," he explained. "So I decided to stop in for a drink."

"What you havin'?" Peter asked, not really interested as he pointed to the drink in front of the stranger. The newcomer laughed to himself slightly, as if it were some private joke that only he got.

"A seabreeze," he said, smiling smugly.

"Oh," Peter said, shrugging. A chick drink, really, but he didn't honestly care. "As long as it's not water or something."

He laughed and waved goodbye to three of the bar's other patrons, who were going back to their shifts at the warehouse down the street. The only other man in there was the poor soul who probably never left; the drunk in the corner who may have been dead except for the spontaneous bursts of angry mutterings. Even the bartender was gone; on break.

The stranger looked around, and Peter smiled as he thought he saw fear in the man's eyes. The stranger turned back towards him, and Peter leaned forward, his eyebrows drawing together menacingly.

"I don't like you," he said slowly. Rather than looking frightened, as Peter had expected him to, the stranger just smiled.

"Really?" he asked pleasantly, as if Peter had just said something positive, his blue eyes narrowing and suddenly seeming to turn to ice. "Because I'm not all that fond of you either, Pete."

Peter sat up straight, looking at the man with narrowed eyes. How did the man know his name?

"Look…" Peter began, but the man stood up from his barstool, straightening out his jacket carefully.

"Your name is Peter Johnson," he said calmly, his eyes riveted to Peter's. "You're married once, divorced once, and currently live with your girlfriend, Susan." Here, he smirked. "Susan is currently back at your house,having a morning fuck with your good friend, John Tudor."

"What?" Peter asked, standing up, feeling fury and hatred filling him as he looked down on this man who dared to accuse Suzie and Johnny, his best friend, of doing anything like that. "Look, I don't know who you are…"

"But I know who you are," the man replied with an easy smile. "I know everything about you. I know your favorite foods, your sleeping habits, your intimate secrets that you'd rather keep from dear old Suzie. I know how you like to use that mug that says 'number one dad' for your morning coffee, even though you haven't seen your kid in over three months. I know what you do to Susan when you think no one's watching. I've watched you, Peter. I know you. And, if I may be allowed to be redundant…I don't like you. In fact…I think I may hate you."

Peter stared at the man in front of him with shock. How could this man who he'd never seen before in his life know all of this? He _never _used his coffee mug around Susan. She didn't even know he still had it.

"How the hell do you know all that?" Peter asked. "Did Melissa hire you to follow me?"

The man laughed.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "This wasn't a job. Your ex-wife has nothing to do with it. Let's just say that this is a…personal matter."

Peter looked at him blankly for a moment.

"Why, what did I do to you?" he asked, trying to think back. Had he done anything stupid in the past year that might get him into trouble? He couldn't remember anything.

"Not to me, Peter. To a…friend, I suppose you could say, of mine."

He reached into the briefcase that he suddenly retrieved from under his stool and pulled out a large manila envelope. He handed it to Peter.

Peter slowly opened the flap, part of him not wanting to know what was in there. But he pulled out the papers anyway, staring at them with a look of confusion.

"What are these?" he asked. He examined the first one. It was a picture of a pretty girl with curly brown hair and blue eyes, smiling into the camera. He turned to the next picture and found the same girl, staring off into space as she sat at a table. The third was of the same girl standing in front of a mirror, crying. The next was the woman at some kind of desk, smiling at two elderly people who were talking to her. All but the first of these these pictures looked like they had been taken without her knowledge. Peter frowned at the man in front of him and flipped to a picture of the girl standing in front of the mirror, wearing a black lacy bra. He smiled slightly, but his smile instantly faded when the man tore the picture out of his hands roughly and sent him a glare with his ice blue eyes that chilled Peter to the bone. The next picture was a close-up of the same picture, but Peter could see a rough blemish on her skin. He looked closer. Was that…?

And then he knew. The woman from the parking lot. Two years and six months ago. She had been struggling against him, and his knife had slipped…

He gasped in horror and threw the papers away, watching with a sinking stomach as they fluttered to the ground. The man in front of him frowned with disapproval, but didn't say anything.

"Who are you?" Peter asked, his upper lip curling into a sneer.

"Me?" the stranger asked. "My name is Jackson... Jackson Rippner." He paused. "But you…you can call me Jack."

He smiled brightly, and Peter didn't have time to register what was happening before the knife was flashing in front of his eyes.

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End file.
